Leviathan(97)

“Do it!” he rasped.

Connor staggered but he didn't have any time or emotion left for amazement or relief. He pointed quickly to a thick white electrical line. “We need to get that line and let it dangle from the box, Thor. We've got to undo the brackets!”

Staring into the box, Thor growled, “Can you touch the insulated section of the wire with a bare hand? Can you pull it out of the box?”

“Yeah! You can touch the insulated section of the cable, but there's a thousand-pound pressure bolt holding the cable in the box so we're gonna have to find some way to—”

Thor snarled through clenched teeth as his hand locked around the wire, and with a superhuman effort he violently tore it out of the box, shattering bolts and ceramic brackets. Then with a long, straining effort, the giant hauled six feet of wire from the connecting pipe.

Connor shook his head, gasping. He saw immediately that it was a 10,000-volt line. “Just let it hang in the air, man. Don't touch the end of it with your hand. The current will kill you in a heartbeat.”

Connor spun, staring as he heard men screaming in panic and pain, Barley bellowing, the roar of the beast, and a continuous cascade of gunfire, rockets, and grenades.

We're out of time!” Connor gasped, turning to Thor. “Quick! Tear out another wire!”

Thor didn't even blink as he explosively ripped a second power cable from the breaker box—a 40,000-volt line. This time Connor was actually shaken to his bones by the display of brute strength.

“That's all we're gonna get.” He grimaced. “Just let the wire hang and don't let it touch the ground! When Leviathan hits the end of the wire, it's going to ground the current!”

Moving with almost unbelievable calm, Thor carefully lowered the wire until the bare copper dangled six feet above the floor. The bronze-tinted point, poised in the air, glistened dangerously in the fluorescent light as frantic strides approached.

“They're deeeaaaad! They're dead! It's right behind me!”

Barley's scream blasted down the tunnel and Connor whirled as the lieutenant charged around the corner. Instantly Connor was leaping back from the entrance and screaming, “Hit the ground! Barley hit the ground don't touch the wire!”

Barley understood, quickly dropping ten feet before he reached the wires and squirming forward in a lightning-fast combat crawl. He went under the wires as the shadow of Leviathan struck the corner behind him, the beast closing fast.

A demonic, howling head led the Dragon around the corner, low and pursuing. And then Thor had leaped after Barley with Connor following even as Leviathan lunged and lashed out, a jet-black foreleg flashing between the distended wires.

Connor screamed and twisted away as the butcher-knife claws slashed across his chest.

* * *





Chapter 22



A volcanic white bolt struck the Dragon through the face as it hit the 40,000-volt line, the power surging through its reptilian form to ground out on the hind legs and Connor spun away wildly as the six-ton beast was slammed against the roof of the passage.

Shrieking through the electrocution, Leviathan responded with a colossal twist and struck the side of the tunnel with a foreleg, hurling itself aside. The current broke from its body, and the Dragon crashed thunderously to the tunnel floor, disoriented.

Connor hauled a hot breath, felt his lungs blistered by the air.

Coughing, he realized that the entire atmosphere of the tunnel was suddenly superheated by the Dragon's presence and the electrical blast. He grimaced as Leviathan shrieked in pain, only forty feet away, its tendons knotting, coiling inward, tearing.

And Connor understood ...

“Yes,” he whispered, staring. “That's what really hurts you, isn't it? That's what you really hate ...”

Then Thor was over him and Connor was pulled to his feet, staggering through the howling, apocalyptic air. Dimly Connor realized that the 40,000-volt blast had knocked out the breakers in this section of tunnels. But he also knew that backup systems would keep the power alive in other areas of the cavern.

He noticed that his chest was bleeding, and he gazed down to see thin red lines drawn across the skin. No, he realized suddenly, it hadn't missed. But it hadn't struck deeply enough, either. They had traded wounds. And Connor had narrowly won.

Connor knew they couldn't outrun it. Nothing could outrun it. Still, though, they stumbled forward, gasping and stunned. They ran three hundred feet from the tunnel entrance, staggering in the painfully hot air when Leviathan violently roared behind them, recovering.

Rising.

The Dragon stood, hurling a shriek over them.

“Enough!” Barley roared, spinning and dropping to a knee. He leveled the M-203 with white-hot hate, slamming in a grenade. “I have had enough of this GET DOWN!”